About the award
The Indigenous Tourism and Biodiversity Website Award is a collaborative effort between Planeta.com and the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity/UNEP (CBD) with the generous support of the Heidehof Foundation.

The award is aimed at private tourism services, owned and operated by indigenous and local communities embodying traditional lifestyles, and its main objectives are to motivate candidates to improve their online communication on biological and cultural diversity, to highlight their best practices in managing tourism in a biodiversity-friendly way and to raise operators and public’s awareness on biodiversity.

#itbw10

Changes
For the award’s second year, we are making a few changes. First, we ask that operations self-nominate. Behind the scenes we’re adding more judges and we are using more Web 2.0 to develop the award, starting with the award’s very own hashtag: #itbw10 (more info about tags and tagging).

The big news is that in 2010, the International year of Biodiversity, the Reisepavillon will feature the winners and host a web marketing workshop. Mark your calendar. We’ll share the best lessons learned.

Timeline
November 30, 2009 – Nominations close

December 2009 – Confirmation of eligible candidates

January/February 2010 – Online voting

April 2010 – Winners of popular and jury award are invited to a face-to-face web-based marketing workshop at the Reisepavillon in Berlin, Germany

Eligibility and Criteria
Tourism services owned and operated by indigenous people and communities are eligible for the Indigenous Tourism and Biodiversity Website Award. We prefer to receive applications from operations in business for at least three full years.

The Indigenous Tourism and Biodiversity Website Award creates an opportunity for indigenous people and communities to tell their stories direct to potential visitors by improving their websites. Among the criteria for selection, the website should …